


you have to be for something better

by youheldyourbreath



Category: Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: F/M, mid-credit scene spoilers, spider-man far from home spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-03
Updated: 2019-07-03
Packaged: 2020-06-03 15:52:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19467199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youheldyourbreath/pseuds/youheldyourbreath
Summary: He heard the shouting of civilians beneath the lamp post he was perched on as his world fell apart. For all of his superhero abilities, he could not block out the array of accusations and curses of snarling New Yorkers.The city was his home.For years, he had protected his neighborhood, nearly died for it, too, and in one foul swoop Quentin Beck had planted a seed of distrust that bloomed in an instant.





	you have to be for something better

**Author's Note:**

> far from home was amazing AND fucked me up. so. here. have some angst.

He heard the shouting of civilians beneath the lamp post he was perched on as his world fell apart. For all of his superhero abilities, he could not block out the array of accusations and curses of snarling New Yorkers. The city was his home. For years, he had protected his neighborhood, nearly died for it, too, and in one foul swoop Quentin Beck had planted a seed of distrust that bloomed in an instant.

His heartrate spiked violently. He felt like he might pass out.

_“People will believe anything these days. You’ll see_ ,” Beck had said, as he lay dying. He did not understand, then, what the illusion master meant. He had chalked it up to the incoherent ramblings of a dying man. He should have been more vigilant.

Everything was ruined. His entire life. His friends and family were now open season. Ned. May. MJ.

_MJ_.

Peter fretfully looked down in the crowd. MJ was being rustled about, as people scrambled to corner him around the lamp post, to do what he could not even guess, and he felt the odd flash of fury at his girlfriend being treated like a ragdoll. She looked petrified, but not for her own safety. Her eyes were wide and beseeching up at him.

“EDITH,” he said, calling on the AI that had, inadvertently, fired the first shot that ruined his entire life.

“Yes, Peter?” the robotic voice clicked.

“Find the safest place to hide. Now.”

Before he threw himself down into the waiting hands of angry New Yorkers, Edith chirped, “Searching for a safe place to hide.” Once his feet hit the concrete, people were grabbing at him, ripping at his new costume with their nails. He had super strength, it was true, but it still hurt. He muscled through the pain with gritted teeth as he made his way through the crowd and to MJ.

She tripped into his arms, linking her arms securely around his neck, easily, and without a word of warning, he webbed the pair of them up and out of the crowd. The growing mob shouted in displeasure, but he paid them no mind. He muffled beneath his mask, “Are you okay?”

Michelle burrowed her face in his neck, to shield herself from the wind and he suspected the embarrassment of showing her emotions, and nodded. “Are you?” she countered.

He couldn’t even begin to consider how he felt about everything that had just unceremoniously fallen to pieces. He had finally accepted the fact that he was an Avenger and the true responsibility of the charge Tony left behind. He had survived his European disaster of his trip. He had kissed the girl that he liked and, miraculously, she liked him back. He was not prepared to be an outlaw or vigilante.

He was sixteen years old, for crying out loud. He felt his breath fall him. Michelle must have felt it, too, because she held him tighter and began to whisper “It’s okay” over the whipping wind.

Peter barely succeeded in pushing aside all of his mounting anxiety and dutifully followed E.D.I.T.H’s instructions to the letter to find the safest, most secure place to hide. With MJ in his arms, he could not fall apart. Especially not hundreds of stories up in the air. 

When he landed on the rooftop of an unfamiliar, inconspicuous New York City skyscraper, he paused. “EDITH, are you sure this is the right place?” he asked.

The AI robotically replied, “Yes.” There, splashed across the door that led back down into the beast of the building, was Stark Industries logo in chipped paint. Michelle unwound herself from his embrace and tentatively crossed to the entrance. He yanked his mask off, sucking in some fresh air. “Peter,” she whispered, brushing her hand across the logo.

“I don’t know,” he replied. He had never been to this building before. It had been a secret home to the Avengers, he had never been given an invitation.

The door creaked open, like it had been unused for years and years and years, perhaps even before the blip, and the pair of them walked inside, down winding steps, but not before Michelle locked the door behind them with a heavy bolt.

The top floor was a dusty workspace surrounded on all sides by glass. Fluorescent lights flickered on. No, it was not a workspace, it was a lab. It looked like one of Tony’s labs. There were half-forgotten Iron-Man designs scattered around the room and, on the main desk in the center of the room, was one of his webshooters, cracked open like maybe Tony had been engineering it.

Then, FRIDAY sparked to life with a quiet, “Hello, Peter.”

His knees gave out. Michelle caught him around the middle as he fell and the two of them slowly found the floor. “FRIDAY,” he croaked.

“How can I help you today, sir?”

Peter could not talk, he could not even begin to wrap his brain around the events of the afternoon. The world knew his name. Peter Parker was not safe, which meant May Parker and Ned Leeds and Happy Hogan and Michelle Jones were not safe. He had made them all liabilities because he loved them.

He remembered earlier that week when Peter had posted a picture of him and MJ on Instagram. It was from the night after they returned from Europe. He had taken her to get sandwiches from Delmar and she had been wearing her broken-but-preferred-that-way necklace. After, they had gone for a quiet walk around the city and, when the night was over, she kissed him.

The picture was damning evidence of what she meant to him. He did not even want to think about how many people had already seen that picture on his Instagram. There would be no shielding her from all of his chaos.

He felt her press reassuring kisses to the side of his head.

Tears prickled at the corner of his eyes and he croaked, “I’m so sorry.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” she insisted.

He looked down at his open hands. He could see his red gloves and his webshooters. Symbols of everything he was, or had been. He wanted to tear his suit from his body, but he could not find the strength to stand. Peter was immobile on the floor.

“You didn’t,” MJ whispered, again. “You didn’t do anything wrong, Peter.” She turned his blank eyes toward her fierce ones. “We’ll explain. Mysterio _lied_. I was there. You saved us all.”

“People will believe anything these days.”

Michelle brushed her fingertips across his cheeks. Her eyes were unfathomably sad. “Peter.”

“You’ll see,” he said, mirroring Beck. “He told me, MJ. He as good as told me he was going to do this and I-I didn’t listen. I could have—” he broke off, in a hoarse sob.

“Its going to be okay,” Michelle kissed the top of his head, as he folded himself into her welcome, gentle arms.

But Michelle always told the truth, especially when it was hardest to hear. So, as she struggled to reassure the both of them that everything would be okay, even she didn’t sound like she believed it.


End file.
